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There are many things that Newt likes about himself that he knows others don’t.
The first is his eyes. He doesn’t like to meet gazes with the same bloody-minded determination that everyone else does, because, well, it feels wrong. Eyes are the window to the soul, after all, and why should he bare his soul to just anyone?
People take offense to it; they think he’s dishonest, rude, cowardly, and other untrue things that he never has the energy to correct. Why should he, anyway? He’s tried and tried but they never listen. They don’t care enough to listen to what he says about his animals – they clearly won’t care to listen to what he says about himself.
Newt’s past the point of really minding. He considers being ignored a part of his everyday life, and to be honest he has bigger things to worry about – bigger fish to fry, as the muggles say, though he doesn’t really know what the significance of the fish is. He hasn’t had much of a chance to ask them until now, so he’s stacked it to the side of his mind to focus on more pressing matters.
But anyway, back to his eyes. Swamp coloured eyes, blue-green with flecks of mud. Sometimes he likes to stand in front of the mirror and gaze into them, pulling funny faces to see the ways they crinkle at the edges. They remind him of the Swooping Evil, and it makes him laugh to think of him having something in common with something so large and intimidating.
***
That’s the second thing Newt likes about himself – that he’s not intimidating. He didn’t always like it. He wanted people to respect him, to listen every time he talked, to not look at him askance with judging eyes if he stumbled over his words (and he always did stumble over his words). He had wanted people to quiet when he walked into the room, to look up at him with interest, to be ready and willing to do anything he wanted.
But respect did not mean fear. Respect was not the same as Leta walking into the Hufflepuff common room for the first time and the hustle and bustle stopping like Newt had cast Silencio. The expression on her face had said it all. That had been when Newt had learnt what pain looked like on a person.
Pain, Newt had decided, was not worth being feared.
Pain was not worth anything.
So Newt made peace with his quiet, awkward demeanor. Embraced it, in fact. It was better to be underestimated, he felt, because then you could prove people wrong. That was always much more satisfying.
***
The third thing, Newt supposes, is technically cheating. You can’t really count clothes as a part of a person. But his clothes have always reflected his personality; carefully chosen to be as comfortable, warm, and practical as possible.
The coat (vivid blue, like a young Occamy) had been an impulse purchase. He had seen it in the window of a tiny muggle tailor’s shop in London while he was on his way to Diagon Alley. The sight of it had made him pause in the middle of the street and double back, nearly being run over by a car in the process. Oh, the muggle driver had yelled many, many expletives at him, and he’d felt like an idiot afterwards, but it had been worth it just for the coat. He loved the rough, woolly texture of it, and got into the habit of rubbing his fingers up and down the lapel to calm himself. Little weights, made of tiny hand-sewn bags of sand, had been carefully attached to the inside. They helped it feel more grounding, as if the coat was the only thing keeping Newt anchored in his body instead of floating off like Mooncalf pellets. The pockets had been charmed with an Undetectable Extension Charm like his suitcase had. Although they were nowhere near the size of his suitcase, they could nevertheless keep anything Newt could possibly need in their warm, dark depths. Admittedly, that mostly entailed snacks for his ever growing magical menagerie, and himself, but it was still a very useful thing to have.
He’s proud, too, of his sensible, strong brown boots, snug waistcoat, thin blazer, and thick warm trousers. All of them are textures that are heaven to touch, and most importantly soft on his skin. He had not much liked his Hogwarts robes as a child, save for how they billowed elegantly behind him as he walked – he had always liked that feeling – for the robes had itched and scratched worse than the claws of his enterprising Niffler.
Adulthood had allowed him the freedom to dress as he pleased, something which he had always craved. He was thankful for that.
***
The fourth thing Newt likes about himself is something unquantifiable by muggles and wizards alike. It is the reason that he wears a yellow and grey scarf (which is fantastic to bury his face in when the pressing scents and sounds of the world become too much) and it is something that has gotten him into trouble about as much as it has gotten him out of it.
It is the capacity for compassion.
To be kind.
It seems so simple to say, but in Newt’s experience many people lack such a capability. People are cruel far more often than they are kind. People will laugh at the wild-haired boy always covered in scratches and scrapes more readily than they will help him feed the animals he keeps hidden in his cupboard, and people will try to kill beautiful, innocent creatures far more often than they will try to help them.
Newt remembers the people who were kind to him and his beasts vividly – he clings to the memories of them on long nights alone in his suitcase when he wonders if anyone will ever really listen to him about anything. These are the moments when he becomes overwhelmed with all of the emotions he’s accumulated over long periods, and he feels as if he will burst. Screams come close to shattering the windows of his hut; he shakes and rocks back and forth with his hands clasped over his ears and lets everything inside him loose.
In a way, it is his own personal Obscurus. This one, though, will not tear him apart, even if it feels like it will sometimes.
He remembers the young Sudanese girl often in these moments, and cries out for the unfairness of her situation, wishing he could have changed it but knowing in reality that he could not have.
A Healer once told his mother (over the top of Newt’s head, like Newt couldn’t hear him) that no one person should be able to feel so much. That it was unnatural.
“To have so much empathy for everything, even beasts – there’s clearly something wrong with him.”
Newt’s mother had gently reached for his hand, and he let her take it and squeeze. “Do you think you’re unnatural, Newt?”
Newt had shaken his head emphatically. He knew that nothing, really, was unnatural, least of all him.
“Then you aren’t.” She had said, fiery glare aimed at the Healer, and that had been that.
Letting himself feel things fully and completely was better than caging them up.
Feelings were like beasts. They deserved a gentle hand and someone willing to help, to listen, and Newt knew that he could be both of these things for himself.
And if people didn’t get it, then he would educate them – he would show them what compassion meant.
It was the least he could do, really, for all of the people who’d cared enough to listen to him.
***
The fifth and final thing is perhaps the most obvious, and it is this; he cares about his beasts more than he cares about people.
Not that he doesn’t care about people. He does. Too much, sometimes.
But the beasts don’t care if he messes up his words. The beasts don’t care if he wants to leap around and flap his hands like Frank the Thunderbird flaps his wings when he gets excited. They don’t bat an eyelid when he has one of his overwhelming screaming fits and then sits quietly staring into space, crying, afterwards. They let him chat to them about their proper care and feeding for hours and hours, and never once do they appear to get bored.
The beasts have always been there for him. People always left eventually, no matter how much they cared. He had never really had consistent people in his life; his brother was always away, fighting in some pointless war that Newt did not understand, his father had never really been present in his life to begin with and his mother was –
His mother was dead.
The thought of it was such a deep pain, a wound worse than any he had gotten working with his animals.
He couldn’t keep any of the people he’d cared about safe. With his suitcase, though, he could protect all of the creatures that came into his life. Anything hurt, anything ill, anything small, young, or afraid - Newt welcomed them all.
Thing about beasts was that they accepted you just as long as you were kind to them. They didn’t care if you were odd, if the world saw you as ‘other’, something to be contained, observed from a distance, and unreal.
People were not so simple.
If there had been one thing Newt had learnt on his travels, it had been that people were not easily won over.
Despite this - the isolation, the crippling, damming loneliness that ensued because he seemed to simply not be good enough – Newt knew that he would always have things that cared about him.
Even when he met Jacob and Queenie and Tina, he and they both knew that his beasts would always come first in his heart. And that was fine. Really. He cared for them and they for he, but it was not the same.
Their understanding was all he needed, and they were happy enough to give it to him.
He had never thought he’d have real friends until then, but there they were – happy and patient and kind and accepting, above all else. It was everything he’d always secretly desired but had been too afraid to ask, and it was there! Right in front of him! He would always be thankful for that.
Still, the beasts came first. After all, without him Tina would always have Queenie, and Queenie, in turn, would always have Jacob, but without him the beasts would have no one.
And the deep and boundless depths of his heart would always have room for just one more.
***
The long and short of it (or maybe just the long, this thought process was clearly not very short) is that Newt likes himself. He might not be perfect, might not be the wise, powerful wizard that everyone seems to expect him to be, but he is Newt.
And that is enough.